Monday 31 December 2012

Frans Loots Barlow Wadley, RDF

Mails have been coming and going about a radio my mate Notty once owned, he seems to have misplaced it these days but it does bring up a memory or two.

This was my first real intro to amateur  radio and when Dennis on Brer Terrapin bought an Atlas X12 ham radio, plus the Yeasu FRG7 receiver, that had the Wadley Loop in it, said to give a stable reception from start up so you do not have to re tune when the sets warm. Wadley was a doctor from Durban.

 From Wikepedia
In a traditional superheterodyne radio receiver, most oscillator drift and instability occurs in the first frequency converter stage, because it is tunable and operating at a high frequency. In theory, if one can eliminate this drift, the receiver will be stable.
Unlike other drift-reducing techniques (such as crystal control or frequency synthesis), the Wadley Loop does not attempt to stabilize the oscillator. Instead, it cancels the drift mathematically.

 


 
The Barlow Wadley radio

Notty,

 There is a connection with the St Helena race winner, well will be in a day or so?

 Check the fleets progress here: http://www.governorscup.co.za/race-live

Banjo has just 400 nm to go and is creaming along at plus 10 knots right now, Banjo was built by one Frans Loots,its a Farrier tri

As I mentioned, he built the boat himself and won the same race two years back in it.

 Frans is from PE and either runs or owns Penny Pinchers up there, maybe both? He is ex Navy and Simonstown, also one of my

Blog readers and saw an entry on the Barlow Wadley radio last year (2012) it reminded him of a single handed trip back as a delivery from Rio

After one Cape to Rio races.
 
He did nav with a sextant and checked position with passing ships when he could (remember those days?) he had his Barlow Wadley for time signals but also used it as an RDF when he was near CPT and found Radio Good Hope, that signal was decent enough for him to check on Cape Towns postion!

 Frans has emailed me on the subject, he had also given the radio to his son to try out but was going to claim it back when he realised just what a great radio it was!


 http://ckdboats.blogspot.com/2009/03/barlow-wadley-portable-radio.html

I never did find myself a set, who has one at a sensible price!

Roy